This blog is a view in to my World as a builder of fine gardens and mosaics, and the beautiful places and things that inspire me as I travel the globe.

Friday, November 13, 2015

Cimetière du Père Lachaise, Paris

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I recently saw a documentary film directed by the director Gay Dillingham about Timothy Leary and Ram Dass called Dying to Know, followed by a question and answer session where we talked about Life, Psychology, Psychedelic drugs, and Death. The film really shows how people can foray in to the realm of experiencing death, in order to prepare for this most profound and absolute of transitions. It is the Spirit that makes the journey, and perhaps the most important thing we can do in our lifetimes is to prepare for departure. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iUPpypqWNgM

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Today, Friday November 13 there were a series of attacks on civilians in the magical city of Paris. Without delving in to the horror, which followed suicide bombings in Beirut this week, and blasts at a peace rally in Ankara, Turkey a month ago, there seems to be a desire for people to inflict great pain on others to remedy some great injustice. There is endless strife and conflict all over the world, and the media brings it all in to our conciousness. I feel very sad that kindness just doesn't come naturally for so many people. We violate each other, often out of revenge, or simply because of the power of the military industrial complex exerting its desire for profit. We've been warring since the dawn of civilization, expediating death for tens of millions of people. If you study the history of Paris, it is one marked by a history of tragedy, littered with death. But the way we view death is an everchanging concept. From experience I've learned to accept it, in part to pad the shock. My Earthly body will end up in an urn someday and hopefully be sprinkled about the world in places I have loved in my life of travel. As for my soul, I'm working to make sure its ready.

Bare trees framed in a broken stained glass window

They say the mind lingers for almost an hour after the body dies, transitioning to another realm, whatever that may be.

While mourning the shootings and bombings in Paris this evening I went back in to my picture files to a gallery of images I took at the Père Lachaise Cemetery in December of 2012, on my first trip to the French capital. This was the first municipal and first garden cemetery in the city. It was established by Napoleon in 1804. Napoleon decreed that cemeteries be built in cities throughout his empire for health reasons as the old city cemeteries filled up. During plagues and epidemics the bodies of the dead were often piled in public squares for lack of a place to put them. These cemeteries outside the cities greatly reduced the outbreak of epidemics.

City of the Dead

A lavish bouquet carved in marble

Being a garden cemetery gives Père Lachaice the look of a village of the dead in a forest. It is extraordinary for its ambience and monumental architecture, making it one of the greatest cemeteries in the world. It seemed poignant today to revisit this touchingly macabre landscape, with its depictions of life lost and taken away. While there is an overlying sadness, sorrow cohabitates with strange beauty and profound peace.

There are more than 1,000,000 bodies buried here, and thousands more in the Columbarium, where ashes are interred.

Here lies a gallery of my favorite images from that afternoon at Père Lachaise.

The grave of French painter Thèodore Gèricault

The gates of Sorrow

City of the Dead

French sculptor Jean Joseph Carriès

Moss Roses

The Belgian writer and poet Georges Rodenbach, breaking out of his grave

Not public: Tom King here, in Lawrence, Kansas. I've been following your work for several years, Jeffrey, always excellent. From the Alhambra to Burning Man, good living. I have some seeds I'd like to send you and a potential project to broach. tomwking@yahoo.com. I hope 2016 will see you well and happy. I'm sure you'll make it so.

I just staggered home from a most epic New Years experience in San Luis Potosi, Mexico tonight. What I have experienced here in the celebration of a year's end gives me faith in humanity once again. Their are great gifts in our world in unexpected places. I'd be happy to receive and nurture your seeds if they can tolerate the perameters of my capabilities. jeffreygardens@gmail.com

I quite enjoyed your photos of this very special place, which my partner and I visited a couple of years ago on a visit to Paris. My only regret is not spending more time there than we did, so your photos helped fill in some of the gaps for me...

your reports are always so passionated and documented. I'm french, i've live 500 meter far away from the Père Lachaise but i learn some facts about this familiar place, through your eyes. I regret that you lives so far away. I would love to have you as neighbour. I would adore visiting my country with you.

About Me

I am a builder of gardens by trade. Growing up in Eugene, Oregon, I have had a lifelong connection to Nature in the Pacific Northwest. After graduating with a degree in Landscape Architecture from the University of Oregon, I began to travel. I’ve made it a habit to travel as much as I can ever since. 3 to 5 month forays have defined every winter for the past 33 years. First Mexico, then Thailand, which led to 12 successive journeys through much of S.E. Asia, Sri Lanka, the Nepali Himalaya, and 6 trips to India. Then on to South America over 11 winters, and now the Mediterranean. I spent two winters in Morocco and Southern Spain and 3 in Italy, and the last in Greece. I recently returned to Mexico for 3 months. When I am home I build gardens for a living, and have become known for my pebble mosaic work. My work is heavily influenced by my travels. Everywhere I go I document beautiful things, with an eye for how they were made and why. There is a story behind every design. What inspires me the most is when art works in harmony with nature.